Christmas Catch Up

Well, Christmas is nearly here and due to a mid week interruption (just a little birthday mind you) I've not done a huge amount of crafting. Because I was without a computer for a little while, I think I missed showing pictures of a few things that I have made lately. So, a little catch up:

A baby jacket and booties for the friend of a friend.

Santa hats, made by number 3 son.

A personalised lavender bag for friend to give as a christening gift.

Christmas decorations made by my 2 favourite cubs.

A rubbish photo I know but this is the Christmas decoration that I made for the host of Dressing Gown Day.

Now it's all gone a bit Pete Tong - I was a lucky girl and got an iPad for my birthday, and I'm finishing a draft post using IT rather than the laptop. I have no idea why the new photos are so big! Anyway, these are the lovely Christmas decorations made by sons 2 and 3.

And this.......

is the beautiful cake made for my birthday by my ever talented sister in law. Thank you Sarah!

I shall link up with Handmade Harbour today for the last time in 2013.
Merry Christmas everyone, and Best wishes to you all for the New Year!

Love Natalie

Dressing Gown Day 2013 featuring Mini Baileys Cheesecakes

It being very nearly Christmas, this Wednesday saw the return of Dressing Gown Day, a day for an elite group of ladies to take the day off, eat, drink and be merry - whilst wearing their dressing gowns!

A fabulous day was had by all! Despite the fact that a couple of us had to make a quick nip out to accept a delivery on behalf of a friend, school calling to report a sick child, family members being admitted to hospital......we took it all in our stride (the hot chocolate helped!). And how could our spirits be dampened when a rather special person paid us an unexpected visit:

In the words of Buddy the Elf - "Santa! I know him!"

Look at their little faces!
I received a lovely pair of Christmas rubber gloves, beautifully modelled her by number 3 son:

I baked some goodies for us to nibble on during the morning - white chocolate cookies, quick and easy sausage rolls and mini Baileys cheesecakes. I only had to share the recipe about 10 times during the morning so I thought perhaps others might like to know how to make these delicious little morsels.

They're so easy!
You need a pack of shop bought shortcrust pastry, a packet of soft cream cheese, 3 tbsp icing sugar and as much baileys as you want to taste.
Using a mini muffin pan (I have a Pampered Chef one) make pastry shells. I haven't made these cheesecakes for a while so learned a valuable lesson myself: next time, I'm going to put a baking bean in each one whilst they are cooking because they do tend to rise up in the middle a bit. When the shells are cooked, leave them to cool. Meanwhile, make the filling - mix the cheese and icing sugar together, and then mix in Baileys till you have the required taste. All that is left is to pipe the filling into the shells. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture before they were gobbled up but I'm sure you get the idea!

I'll be linking up with Handmade Monday - the penultimate one before Christmas!

Love Natalie

A new link up!

I've linked up with Craftastic Monday hosted by Sew Can Do today so welcome to any new readers joining me from there! I love these linky parties although it can be time consuming looking at everyone's blogs!

Handmade Christmas Wreaths

I attended a wreath making workshop a couple of weeks ago and I'm so pleased with the result!

All of the materials were provided, and the instructions of how to turn wire, moss and holly into a decoration, and great fun was had by all.

There was a lot of "ouch-ing" because of the holly, despite the fact we were all wearing gardening gloves of some sort, but the end result was worth the pain.

How are your Christmas decorations coming along? Ours are all up and we're ready to go - there is at least one very excited little boy in my house!

I'll be joining up with Handmade Monday so join me there if you can to catch up on the Christmas craft goings on.

Love Natalie

It's been a long time!

In a fight between 2 of your children, who will come off the worse for wear do you think? I'll tell you who - the laptop! Which was unceremoniously dropped on its head. Consequently we have been without a computer for the last couple of weeks. The children have all gone without electrical entertainment of all kinds for the time it has taken to repair the laptop, which has been interesting to say the least, but finally, thanks to a very clever and helpful friend, we are back online! Most importantly, the children can do their homework again but equally important - I can blog again! And order the Tesco shopping to be delivered, but there's no need to talk about that.....

So now I need to catch up with myself. As it so happens, I have been suffering the perils of tonsillitis for almost the same amount of time as the computer has been broken so I'm ashamed to say that I feel I have done very little crafting. But it is such a hectic time of year, am I really surprised? What I may lack in crafting, I have made up for in Christmas planning so I can report that I have written all of my cards and wrapped all of the presents so that's something. I've also made it through son  number 1's 12th birthday, the celebrations for which included the most gorgeous chocolate cake I've ever tasted, courtesy of Auntie Sarah.

Since my last post, I've also finished the shawl I was making for a friends Granny. Apparently, when you reach the dizzy age of 99, you don't have to wait till Christmas to get your presents, so she is already in receipt of her gift and I'm assured that she loves the colour and is thoroughly warmed by it.

 I just knitted garter stitch, increasing 1 stitch at either end of the row until it was big enough. It was a beautiful colour yarn that has striped well. Since I am hopeless at crochet my mum very kindly crocheted around the edge to tidy it up a little.

What do you think? I realise it's not at all technical, but very effective none the less.

I'm sure I have much more to report but I think that will do for now! I will enjoy catching up with Handmade Monday - I have been reading blogs but I've been unable to comment - so join me there if you can.

Love Natalie